


the gods, if they do exist, are weeping

by andthentheybow



Series: icarus is bullshit, that's why it's called mythology [7]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Minecraft IRL, Morally Ambiguous Character, Mythology References, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Twelve Gods of Olympus (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), but there are actually fourteen, no beta we die like icarus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthentheybow/pseuds/andthentheybow
Summary: it goes like this: they are the young. the overlooked. the eager. the unstoppable.they are the olympians, the ones who descend their thrones and walk among the common folk, the ones with stories written about them rather than legends. they are the eight children of the six, and they will not go down without a fight.or, zeus gets mad. icarus has a pretty good defense system.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs, Clay | Dream & Darryl Noveschosch, Clay | Dream & Floris | Fundy, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Niki | Nihachu, Clay | Dream & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Series: icarus is bullshit, that's why it's called mythology [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057166
Comments: 28
Kudos: 227





	the gods, if they do exist, are weeping

**Author's Note:**

> don't be creepy about content creators, this is my interpretation of their personas, if they're uncomfortable it'll be taken down, etc etc

legends and stories are two very different things. there are the legends of old, the ones where you aren’t sure if they really exist or not; tales that are just a bit stranger than what should be possible, copied and pasted a few too many times to be feats regular mortals are capable of. then there are the stories, the myths, the ones that could be true but are still just a little off, (time: nowhen; place: a little to the left), that could be entirely possible in this reality but just seem  _ wrong _ .

legends and stories are inherently different. there are legends about the six. there are stories about the eight.

the six are the original, the most powerful. the eight are the descendents, more specialized, but when the time comes, they will fight against their father. oh, will they fight, because when one of their own is endangered, they will not stand down.

it goes like this: icarus flies too close to the sun. he does not fall. apollo may melt his wings, but helios welcomes him home with open arms. helios is done playing zeus’s games, so he goes to daedalus and tells him to send icarus home.

and daedalus-

does.

icarus and helios are reunited at last. zeus is not very happy about it. zeus wanted to see icarus fall, and came so close to achieving that goal. he just forgot that love for the sun can keep even wings of wax from melting. zeus wanted to see helios burn, and came so close to achieving that goal. he just forgot that what’s already on fire cannot burn more.

he did not forget that icarus and helios together are a force to be reckoned with. why else would he try and keep them apart in the first place? dream forces tommy and tubbo to be separated, and they tell him no.

they are reunited, and hestia- niki- stands forward. she puts her two boys behind her and looks dream in the eyes and tells him to leave. she is fearless and fearsome, and for now, dream listens to her.

that does not stop him from trying to separate the two boys again. that does not stop him from trying to build the walls around their athens higher than the sky itself. that does not stop him from doing all the things he wants to do, because to the rest of the world, dream is zeus, king of the gods, always on top.

but he underestimated icarus’s defense system. because before they were icarus and helios, they were hermes and apollo, and their siblings will not stand down.

it goes like this: the first to stand against him are ares and athena, the gods of war; sapnap and george, his two best friends. sapnap and ares are one in the same, the instigators, their eyes shining with blood as they call for death. george and athena are colder, more calculating, the strategiser to sapnap’s pure rage. zeus tells them he cares about nothing but icarus’s wings; dream tells them he cares about nothing but tommy’s discs.

they aren’t too happy about this.

dream finds his two best friends turned against him, joining with their siblings to form a new nation. zeus has all but declared war against the war gods themselves, and now that the statement has been made, they will fight this war to the end. they will not let him forget it. george and sapnap were the first to stand with him, and they will be the first to stand against him.

long after tommy and tubbo have gone to bed, quackity stepping down from his post to give tommy the title of vice president again, dream slips through the halls of the white house. he will find tommy, and he will take the boy’s last life himself. he will not just melt those wings, he will shatter them.

by the time he makes it to tubbo’s door, knowing damn well that tommy and niki and likely quackity are all inside, he is set on assassinating the reinstated vice president. but when he gets there, he finds sapnap and george, arms crossed, in full enchanted netherite armor.

“you’re not getting through,” sapnap growls. there is a fire dancing in his eyes and the blood pumping through his veins is the blood of the thousands whose ends were brought about by the war god. dream turns to george and sees the same blood running through his veins, and he is met with his own reflection in george’s glasses.

“don’t even think about it,” george drawls.

ares and athena take their stand. zeus backs down. for now.

it goes like this: the next to stand against him are artemis and aphrodite, the other two daughters. he seeks them out, looking for their aid in destroying icarus, and they both turn him down.

“the thing is, dream,” artemis says with a wide-toothed grin. “i actually like tommy.”

“leave, dream,” aphrodite tells him.

quackity is artemis, the hunter, with a silver tongue and silver bow; he flits from place to place, always in the background, always three steps ahead when he seems one step behind. tommy is not his quarry, not his intended prey; he will not help dream. karl is aphrodite, the lover, who can turn deadly in an instant if those he loves are threatened. quackity and sapnap are both upset with dream; therefore, karl will be, too.

dream does not leave. dream is the creator, the god, he will not bend to the whims of the likes of them-

and then he remembers ares and athena, directly standing in front of him, physically blocking his path. that is what artemis and aphrodite are doing now, only in a much more political sense: they will not help him. their nation will fight him. their nation will not allow him to destroy l’manberg, tommy’s symphony.

artemis and aphrodite take their stand. he leaves. for now.

it goes like this: hephaestus is the next to stand against him. hephaestus, thrown off the mountain by hera, who zeus really had no impact in the creation of other than just existing. hephaestus made of fire, he who works in the great forges, he who creates multitudes.

hephaestus, who zeus thought would be on his side.

fundy is not on his side. he reaches out to fundy and the hybrid doesn’t even respond, doesn’t offer him the time of day. he asks fundy for help, somewhere public where he can’t just walk away, and he says no. he is not schlatt’s little pet anymore, not hera’s creation. he is his own, and tommy and tubbo let him be his own. why would he trade that for anything?

fundy is hephaestus, god of the forge, not the creation of man but the creation of all things they use. he finds a way to do things zeus never thought possible, and the fire that burns in his eyes; for his father, for schlatt, for techno, for dream himself; it burns brighter and brighter.

hephaestus does not like hera or poseidon or hades; schlatt or wilbur or techno. hephaestus relies on demeter and hestia, eret and niki. hephaestus will not listen to zeus. fundy will not listen to dream.

hephaestus takes his stand. zeus leaves him alone. for now.

it goes like this: the sixth to stand against him dionysus. dionysus, who zeus had at least a tolerable relationship with. dionysus, who has always been on his side before now. dionysus, who he goes to as a last resort.

“i love you, but absolutely not,” dionysus tells him.

bad is dionysus, the god of so much more than wine and revelry. he is the god of theatre, the god of the lost children, the god of celebrating the good and pleasant things in life. and while bad loves a good show, loves feeding the flames of the chaos with his nation behind him, there are some things that bad will not stand for. killing tommy is one of them.

“i won’t let you tear yourself apart like this, dream,” bad tells him. “it’s over. deal with it.”

zeus does not like what he is saying.

dionysus takes his stand. zeus listens. for now.

it goes like this: what he thinks will be the last to stand against him are his own siblings, the six. niki turns him away, staring him down; he blinks first. wilbur hovers around tommy, a watchful force, a vengeful spirit. schlatt’s ghost haunts tubbo, even though none of them can see him, guiding his hand to make smarter choices. eret commands him to stand down. techno lurks. hestia, poseidon, hera, demeter, hades: they all tell zeus to stop.

niki is hestia, she who looks death in the eye and forces death to look away out of the sheer fire in her eyes. wilbur is poseidon, his moods as temperamental as the tides, a swirling storm surrounding tommy. schlatt is hera, hatred burning deep, motherly love burning deeper, hovering over tubbo. eret is demeter, the harvest, a commanding force, threatening and poised with their scythe to strike. techno is hades, blood god of the dead, his withers raised again but this time to protect. they all tell him to stop.

they take their stand. he stops. for now.

it goes like this: the last to stand against him are hermes and apollo, the two he has been trying to kill since the beginning. they are the two that directly defy his every order, that do what they want, that cause nothing but trouble when they are together.

tommy is hermes and tubbo is apollo, and they stand together against zeus. zeus, who has given them everything, who has every right to take that everything away.

tubbo is apollo: he is the sun that icarus flies toward, the sun that burns those who get too close. he is the music that plays in the streets, his laughter quiet and melodic, composing l’manberg’s symphony in its creator’s wake. he is the poetry written by the philosophers, the ballads and elegies for the ends of days. he is the self-fulling prophecies, the inherent truths of the world, the healing force of love that counters the violence all around him.

tommy is hermes: he is the messenger, the traveller, the roads are his home and will never be his home. he protects those who feel lost, who are looking for somewhere to stay, pulls them into his own personal olympus and keeps them there. he is the wealth that runs through the veins of the earth, his hair like gold, his laughter like gemstones. he is the luck of the draw, the mischievous, the thief. he is the beginning and the end, the hero of the story, the one who wanders but is not lost.

tommy and tubbo confront him no more than a week after tommy’s return. and they tell him to stop. they tell him to build his walls if he wants to, block out his own sky if that’s what he chooses.

he chooses not to.

he chooses not to, because he knows that tommy and tubbo will not stand down. he chooses not to because he knows that when they put their minds to something, hermes and apollo are completely unstoppable. he chooses not to because he knows that the others will always stand against him, and there is nothing he can do about it.

hermes and apollo take their stand.

and zeus

backs

down.

  
  
  


there are stories about hermes and apollo, about athena and ares, about aphrodite and artemis and hephaestus and dionysus. there are stories, not legends, because they are the ones that come down and walk among the mortals. they are the ones that come down to take their own stand, that stay away from olympus, away from zeus, away from dream. there are stories about them, not legends, because they are all something mortal, something so painfully mortal that they are practically immortal.

the other thing they have in common is that they all know the story of icarus. they all know the story of theseus. and they are not going to let it happen again. history will not repeat itself here. the gods know, and the gods remember.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos/etc validate me!!! love you all <3


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